Cogito ergo sum

The dependent origination, or structure of conditions, appears as a flexible formula with the intention of describing the ordinary human situation of a man in his world (or indeed any conscious event where ignorance and craving have not entirely ceased). That situation is always complex, since it is implicit that consciousness with no object, or being ( bhava— becoming, or however rendered) without consciousness (of it), is impossible except as an artificial abstraction. The dependent origination, being designed to portray the essentials of that situation in the limited dimensions of words and using only elements recognizable in experience, is not a logical proposition (Descartes’ cogito is not a logical proposition). Nor is it a temporal cause-and-effect chain: each member has to be examined as to its nature in order to determine what its relations to the others are (e.g. whether successive in time or conascent, positive or negative, etc., etc.). A purely cause-and-effect chain would not represent the pattern of a situation that is always complex, always subjective-objective, static-dynamic, positive-negative, and so on. Again, there is no evidence of any historical development in the various forms given within the limit of the Sutta Piþaka (leaving aside the Paþisambhidámagga), and historical treatment within that particular limit is likely to mislead, if it is hypothesis with no foundation.

Parallels with European thought have been avoided in this translation. But perhaps an exception can be made here, with due caution, in the case of Descartes. The revolution in European thought started by his formula cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) is not yet ended. Now, it will perhaps not escape notice that the two elements, “I think” and “I am,” in what is not a logical proposition parallel to some extent the two members of the dependent origination, consciousness and being. In other words, consciousness activated by craving and clinging as the dynamic factory, guided and blinkered by ignorance (“I think” or “consciousness with the conceit ‘I am’”), conditions being (“therefore I am”) in a complex relationship with other factors relating subject and object (not accounted for by Descartes). The parallel should not be pushed too far. In fact it is only introduced because in Europe the dependent origination seems to be very largely misunderstood with many strange interpretations placed upon it, and because the cogito does seem to offer some sort of reasonable approach.

Nanamoli Thera

**

Atakkāvacara

Sometimes translated as ‘unattainable by reasoning’ or ‘not accessible to doubt’. But the Cartesian cogito ergo sum is also, in a sense, inaccessible to doubt; for I cannot doubt my existence without tacitly assuming it. This merely shows, however, that one cannot get beyond the cogito by doubting it. And the Dhamma is beyond the cogito. The cogito, then, can be reached by doubt—one doubts and doubts until one finds what one cannot doubt, what is inaccessible to doubt, namely the cogito. But the Dhamma cannot be reached in this way.

Thus the Dhamma, though certainly inaccessible to doubt, is more than that; it is altogether beyond the sphere of doubt. The rationalist, however, does not even reach the inadequate cogito, or if he does reach it* he overshoots the mark (atidhāvati—Itivuttaka II,ii,12 <Iti.
43>); for he starts from the axiom that everything can be doubted (including, of course, the cogito). Cf. also Majjhima xi,2 <M.ii,232-3> & i,2 <M.i,8>. See Nibbāna.

* When he is being professional, the rationalist will not allow that what is inaccessible to doubt is even intelligible, and he does not permit himself to consider the cogito; but in his unprofessional moments, when the personal problem becomes insistent, he exorcizes the cogito by supposing that it is a rational proposition, which enables him to doubt it, and then to deny it. ‘Les positivistes ne font qu’exorciser le spectre de l’Absolu, qui reparaît cependant toujours et vient les troubler dans leur repos.’—J. Grenier, op. cit., p. 44. (‘The positivists do nothing but exorcize the spectre of the Absolute, which however always reappears and comes to trouble them in their sleep.’) For Grenier, the Absolute is not (as with Bradley) the totality of experiences, but is to be reached at the very heart of personality by a thought transcend-ing the relativity of all things, perceiving therein a void (pp. 100-1).

Precisely—and what, ultimately, is this Absolute but avijjā, self-dependent and without first beginning? And what, therefore, does the Buddha teach but that this Absolute is not absolute, that it can be brought to an end? See A Note On Pañiccasamuppàda §§24 & 25.

Nanavira Thera